She Keeps Me Warm
by randolhllee
Summary: Holly wants to know why Gail has been avoiding her friends, and Gail worries that she's too cold. [Gail/Holly relationship, mentions of Chris and some of the others]


I was watching Rookie Blue 2.11 (A Little Faith), in which Gail and Chris break up, and his reasoning as to why it was Gail's fault really bothered me, especially considering that he wanted Dov and Gail to be friends:

_"You let him in. You went around behind my back, and you let someone get close to you."_

I know that Chris has his own issues with betrayal, and that Gail/Dov could have handled the situation better, but it struck me that this was something Gail would probably internalize. She tries to figure out these rules of how to interact with people, and I thought that with Chris' mixed signals, she could very well learn the completely wrong thing from their breakup.

Anyway, this is a short one-shot of how that might play into her relationship with Holly. Enjoy!

* * *

In the week after they started dating, or at least the week after Holly learned that Gail considered them to be dating, Gail did not set foot inside the Penny. Every night, when she got off shift, she headed to the lab, or to Holly's house, or out to eat somewhere with Holly.

After a week of being the center of Gail's life, Holly commented on the change. As with most things, she approached the topic obliquely, trusting Gail's mind to get her to the real question.

"I haven't heard you complain about Dov and Chloe's PDA since she got out of the hospital, Gail. Any chance you've warmed up to them, or is their love on the rocks?" she teased gently.

Gail looked up at Holly through the corner of her eye. They were laying on the couch, Holly tucked between Gail and the sofa back, with Holly's hand drifting through Gail's shorn locks every minute or so. Holly had referred to this position as proof that Gail was indeed a cat, and Gail had merely shrugged. She made humming noises sometimes, though, and Holly could never tell if she was purring in jest or truly lost in the throes of feline happiness.

"I haven't really been around them," she answered. "Chloe's on desk duty. I rode with Dov yesterday, though, and he couldn't stop whining."

"You could let him win at trivia," Holly suggested. "Just to make him feel better."

Gail scoffed. "As if." Then she shifted a little so that she was facing upwards, her hip pressing more into Holly's. "I think I'm done with trivia nights and that kind of stuff, anyway."

Holly pressed a small kiss to the side of Gail's head and smoothed it with her hand. "Why?"

"I have you now." Though she had been staring at the ceiling, Gail glanced over at Holly to watch her reaction to Gail's words. Gail's eyebrows knitted together in surprise in response to Holly's concerned expression. "I do, right?"

Holly rushed to correct that line of thinking. "Of course you do. But why would having me mean that you don't do things with your friends anymore?" She bit her lip, unsure if that question was too direct or just what needed to be asked.

Gail turned her head to look Holly in the eye. "I do things with you now. I don't need them." Her expression was confused and worried, but she spoke with surety, as if repeating a lesson memorized long ago.

Holly tilted her head to the side and brushed the fringe of Gail's bangs aside. "Gail," she began softly, "you still need your friends. I don't want us to be the kind of relationship that takes us away from other people who are important to us. That's not healthy."

Gail's face remained neutral as she listened to Holly speak, but her eyes drifted away and her body shrank minutely from Holly's. "Oh," she breathed. "I see."

"Gail?" Holly's voice took on a note of panicked authority. "Please don't do that."

"Do what?" Her voice had regained some of the distance that Holly thought they had closed over the course of their friendship.

"Don't pull away. Just tell me what you're thinking," Holly murmured.

Gail was silent for a moment, then opened her mouth to speak and closed it again. Holly waited patiently until she had gathered her thoughts.

"I'm trying to make sure that you know that you're the only one I want to let in," she said slowly, as if she was not quite sure of the meaning of what she was saying. "I don't ever want you to think that there's someone else."

Holly shook her head in confusion.

"Gail, they're your friends. I'm not going to think that you're cheating on me just because you spend time with them."

Gail sighed and stood up abruptly, leaving cold air to rush over Holly where she had gotten used to Gail's warmth.

"I'm going to make tea, do you want any?" she asked without looking at Holly.

Holly sat up and stared at Gail, frankly frightened by the change in her girlfriend.

"Gail, you're scaring me. Please don't change the subject."

Gail huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. Her defiant eyes found Holly's as if blaming her for what was to come next.

"You say that now. That you want me to spend time with other people. But later you'll just get mad at me for letting them in."

Holly's mouth hung open a little, surprised at the turn this had taken.

"Gail, that's not—"

"We're close, Holly, okay? I let you in. I'm trying not to screw this up." With that, Gail walked quickly toward the kitchen.

Unable to wrap her head around what Gail was saying, Holly followed her into the kitchen and found her digging through the cupboards, tossing every type of tea Holly owned onto the counter.

Holly stood behind her at a respectful distance. "Gail."

"What kind do you want? I know you're supposed to drink chamomile before going to bed, but I can't stand it." Having dumped all the boxes onto the counter, Gail then picked through all of them.

"Gail." Now she moved to Gail's side, trying to make eye contact with the upset blonde.

"I can never remember, does peppermint have caffeine in it?" She was nervously shuffling the boxes, but with the way her hands were fidgeting, Holly doubted if she could actually read them.

Holly placed her hands over Gail's and pulled them away from the counter.

"I know black tea is—"

When Gail attempted once more to talk about tea, Holly grabbed her face in her hands and kissed her softly. When she pulled away, Gail still looked bewildered, but her hands were finally still.

"I'm sorry, you just had to stop talking," Holly whispered, echoing Gail's words of a few weeks before. It had become a joke between the two of them, a catchphrase of sorts, and Gail smiled a little.

"I won't say another word," she whispered back. This time, though, Holly was not satisfied with that answer.

"That won't work, Gail," she said firmly. "I need you to tell me why you think you having friends is going to screw this up for us."

With Holly's hands still cupping her face, Gail could not look or turn away without more foolishness than even she would consider. She bit her lip and though for a moment before answering.

"It's just something Chris said, once," she whispered, eyes lowered. "When we started dating, he wanted me to spend time with Dov, to be friends with him, you know? And we were friends, but then Dov got high—" she broke off at Holly's amazed expression. "It's a long story. He was on pain meds and he told me he loved me." She looked up at Holly then, who was still looking at her sympathetically.

"It's weird, I know. Anyway, it was nothing and nothing happened, but Chris found out. When we broke up, he said—" she paused, and Holly was pained to see that tears had appeared in her eyes. She breathed hard and continued. "He said that I went behind his back and let someone get close to me."

Holly did not know what Gail had expected her to do, but her tensed muscles under the onslaught of Holly's sudden hug lead her to believe that Gail had imagined nothing less than full rejection. She relaxed into the hug after a moment, and Holly stroked her back soothingly. She could feel drops of water on her shoulder and knew that Gail was crying, which only made her hold her girlfriend tighter.

"I am so sorry, Gail," she whispered.

Gail sniffed, then pulled away to wipe the last vestiges of tears from under her eyes.

"It wasn't your fault."

Holly studied Gail's face and found a hint of fear still lurking.

"No, but he made you feel like having friends, having support in your life, was the same as cheating on him, and you should not have to feel that." Holly found her words taking on anger as she spoke; she had picked up hints here and there that Gail had faced emotional manipulation bordering on abuse from her mother, but she had never realized the extent to which Gail's previous boyfriends had also isolated her. Holly remembered something else, something she had heard in passing when she picked up Gail at the station one night, and decided to see if Gail would open up about it.

"He was the one that called you the Ice Queen at the station that one night, wasn't he?" she asked quietly.

Gail snorted, and Holly smiled to see the famous Peck snark make a minor comeback.

"Yeah. Asshole still calls me that sometimes to annoy me."

Holly smoothed the hair back behind Gail's ears, liking the way it made Gail smile and press their hips a little further together.

"You're not, you know," she affirmed softly. "You're not cold."

Gail looked down suddenly, and Holly leaned forward to try to see under Gail's bangs.

"I am, though," Gail whispered. "I always have been."

Holly shook her head sadly, although when she brought Gail's head up to face her once more, she smiled a little at her girlfriend.

"You have never been cold with me," she asserted. "You have been occasionally guarded, and maybe confusing at times, but you have never been cold." She punctuated the sentence with a soft kiss, meant more to reassure than to end the conversation.

Gail pulled her head back minutely.

"But what if I get that way again?" she asked, her voice a study in anxiety. "What if I get cold?"

Holly placed both hands on the sides of Gail's face and made sure that she could see directly into the dark centers of the explosive blue eyes she had come to love so much.

"I don't think you can," she professed. "But if you do, I'll keep you warm."

Gail smiled.

"You sound like a mediocre pop song," she complained, although it lacked the bite of even her most affectionate insults.

"Hey, I like that song," Holly rejoined in mock indignation. Her smile only grew wider at the matching grin appearing on Gail's face.

"That's a real song?" Gail feigned disbelief. "I bet it's some indie hipster nonsense. You're such a nerd."

"It is not!" Holly exclaimed. "It's part of—" Her explanation was cut off forcibly by Gail's lips, a frequent occurrence, and one that she did not mind if she were being honest.

When Gail broke the kiss, she smiled at Holly.

"Thank you," she said gently. Then her smile grew into a wicked grin, one that said everything was alright again, at least for now. "It is late and all," she began virtuously. "Do you still want tea, or do you want to get to bed?"

Holly shook her head and rolled her eyes. "You were the one who wanted tea in the first place!"

Gail began to walk backward out of the kitchen, pulling Holly by the arms as she went.

"All I'm hearing is a vote for bed, nerd."

* * *

This is my first Rookie Blue fic, so reviews would be even more appreciated than usual. Thanks!


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